Just Friends?
by Lilybookworm13
Summary: Let me tell you about myself, my name is Hanna and I'm eighteen years old. I was adopted and I have eleven adopted brothers and sisters. We live in Evanston and I want to move out as soon as possible. I have know the Baker family all my life. And finally I am not in love with Charlie... Or at least I'll never admit it!


Mom usually accepted my pigsty of a room. It was orderly chaos, I knew where everything was and it made sense to me even if it didn't appear that way to anyone else. But today might have been the last straw. My clothes which were usually in my wardrobe were flung over my bed and I was looking in the mirror at the third dress I had tried on in two hours.

" We're leaving in ten minutes," Dad shouted from downstairs. I was probably the only one still getting ready and I had been trying on clothes for the past two hours!

" Are you ready to go?" Valerie bounced into my room with a smile on her face. She looked around and then at me. " I'm going to take this as a no."

" Does this look ok?" I asked. She walked around me in a circle and I rolled my eyes.

" You look great, you always do," she said, with a sigh. " But wait one second." She ran out of my room and I heard her loud footsteps thud down the hall and return this way a few minutes later. She held a clip in her hand and proceeded to clip my hair back. I looked in the mirror and smiled.

" It will have to do," I said. Valerie sighed and pulled me out of my room. She held my wrist until we were both in the downstairs hall where everyone was waiting.

" Somebody couldn't decide on what to wear," Valerie said, as I glanced in the hall mirror.

" You didn't need to fuss Han," Mom said.

" I wanted to look nice, but it seemed like most of my nice clothes have disappeared," I said, looking at Kia and Valerie. They smiled at each other and looked at what the other was wearing. Sure enough Kia was wearing my favourite pair of jeans and Valerie was wearing one of my tops.

" That's what sisters are for," Mom said.

" Yep," I said.

" Are we ready to go now?" Dad asked. I nodded and he threw me my keys. I caught them and we all walked outside.

" Can I come with you?" Emma asked. I nodded and she ran to get into the car while everyone else piled into the minivan.

" We'll meet you at the restaurant," I said, climbing into the driver's seat. Mom nodded and they drove off. Emma and I followed them as we drove into town.

" Only a month left of summer, what do you think of that?" I asked. There was no reply. " Em?" I looked over and saw her staring out the window, lost in a daydream. It happened a lot with Emma she was a dreamy sort of person, always had her head in the clouds. So the drive was silent, I parked the car and then we walked to the Italian where we were meeting the Bakers.

They had moved to Evanston yesterday, and I wasn't sure if I was excited or nervous. Possibly both.

Emma and I sat down and Becky climbed on to my knee, she leaned back against the table and looked up at me. She held out her hands and I smiled.

"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and shape it and mark it with "B",

And bake it in the oven for baby and me," I sang as she clapped her hands against mine.

" My turn," Darcy said, kneeling up beside me. I turned and repeated the rhyme with her so they would both be happy and then I sat Rebecca down beside her because the door had just opened and a rather large family had walked in. It was them, what other family had twelve kids? Apart from us.

I watched as they walked over, none of them seemed too pleased to be here, then again I wouldn't want to be in their position, having to move would be awful.

I couldn't help but smile when Charlie sat opposite me. The Bakers quickly filled the remaining seats and menus were passed out. On either side of me the triplets had kids menus and were colouring in the dinosaurs.

" What colour's the sun?" Max asked.

" Yellow," I replied, opening my menu.

" No, it's blue," he said.

" Fair enough," I answered.

" Max, this is mine!" Darcy said, she tried to pull the crayon from Max's hand.

" Stop it," I said. They ignored me and I shouted at them again. They ignored me and I looked at them. I pulled Darcy back and took the crayon from Max's hands.

" Now I get the crayon and I'll take them all if you don't be good," I warned.

" Yes Hanna," they said, and I smiled at them. Sometimes they could be so good and then other times they were like demons. I glanced up to see Charlie looking at his menu so I turned to Rebecca.

" What do you want to eat?" I asked. She pointed to a picture of pizza and I nodded. " With fries?" She nodded and went back to colouring. So on one side of me there were the two triplets who never shut up and on the other side was the one who barely spoke.

" I think they make up for her being quiet."

" Definitely, she doesn't get a chance to speak with them," I replied. " What do you think of Evanston?"

" Haven't seen any of it yet," he said.

" It's nothing special but it's nice," I said. " I could show you around if you want."

" Maybe," he replied. My first conversation in eight years with the person I considered my best friend when I was ten years old. Well if this was any indication of how future conversations would go I was not looking forward to them.

" Hanna, when does school start back?" Mom asked.

" The second," I replied.

" We'll be in the same grade, right?" Charlie asked.

" Yep," I said. He smiled and reached into the pocket of his coat.

" I found this when I was clearing my room," he said, he passed me a folded picture and I unfolded it and laughed. There I was sitting on a tree branch, my ginger hair was in two long braids and my top and shorts were muddy. My knees were scabby and I had bruises covering my shins.

" I really did look like Pippi Longstocking!" I laughed.

" That's you?" Darcy asked, surprised. " You look so small."

" Well I was about seven," I said.

" And that's him?" She asked looking up at Charlie. I nodded and looked at the photo again.

Charlie sat on the branch beside me, even though we were both sitting I could see I was taller than him. He had a navy baseball cap on his head and like me he was covered in mud.

" That's nice," I said, with a smile.

" I found more but Mom took them for a photo album," he said.

" Or to give them to my Mom," I said.

" Do you remember the summer we decided to camp in the backyard?" He asked.

" And it started raining so we ended up inside toasting marshmallows in the oven," I added.

" And we nearly set fire to the kitchen."

" No, that was you. I said to take them out," I said.

" Then we watched movies till midnight," he said.

" Until Nora complained that she couldn't get to sleep because of our noise," I laughed.

" And the next morning we put a bucket of mud on top of her door."

" And got grounded for a week."

And that was it, we talked the whole way through dinner, basically ignoring everyone else. Any anger I had was gone, I was just glad to see Charlie again.

" You tried to set a cat on fire," I said.

" That was an accident," he replied, as our desserts were sat in front of us.

" Sure it was," I said, putting a bit of chocolate cake in my mouth.

" It was," he said. A phone rang and he pulled his from his pocket. " Sorry, I have to take this." He jumped up and walked away from the table.

" Charlie, sit down," Mr Baker said.

" It's Beth, Dad," he replied.

" Tell her you're at dinner," Mr Baker answered. Charlie glared at his father and walked towards the bathrooms.

" Beth's his girlfriend," Mrs Baker said. From where I was sitting I could hear the conversation between my parents and Mr and Mrs Baker, I was glad now even if I was slightly disgusted earlier.

" Have they been together long?" Mom asked.

" About a year. Back in Midland he spent all of his time with her. But she wasn't the best influence on him. She has no ambition, she'd be happy enough to drop out of school and do nothing for the rest of her life. Charlie's been saying that he doesn't want to go to college now because of her," Mrs Baker said.

" I'm sure he'll change his mind," Mom said.

" Oops." I looked down and saw Max covered in ice cream, he smiled up at me. " I'm a snowman Hanna!"

" Sure you are Frosty," I said, trying to mop up all the melting ice cream with a napkin.

" I think Hanna would make him go to college," Mrs Baker said.

" If anyone can she can," Mom answered.

Half an hour later we were leaving and I'm sure it was a welcome sight for the staff of the restaurant. Our goodbyes with the Bakers were short, saying we'd see them later in the week. And then it was back home.

" Han?" Mom poked her head through my open door and I looked up from my book.

" Yeah?" I asked. She shut the door and walked over to the desk. She glanced around and then sat down. " If you're here to tell me to tidy my room it's not going to work."

" It never does," Mom laughed. " Did you enjoy your dinner?"

" It was delicious. Thanks," I said.

" You spent all night talking to Charlie," she said.

" It was either that or the triplets," I replied.

" Do you remember how you and Charlie used to write letters to each other?" Mom asked.

" Yeah, but it was only for a couple of years," I replied. I had the box in my wardrobe, full of letters and pictures. I took it out every now and again, it was nice to remember what things used to be like.

" Why did they stop?" Mom asked.

" I don't really know. I guess we got too old for letters," I said.

" Kate and I have a different reason," she said.

" Why does that not surprise me?" I asked.

" You stopped writing to each other when Charlie got his first serious girlfriend. You were jealous because he didn't have time for you anymore," Mom said.

" Mom, I wasn't jealous. He was just a friend that I wrote to, it was going to stop at some point," I replied.

" He was a cute little boy," she said. I lay back on my bed and rolled my eyes, I should have known. " And quite handsome now."

" And he has a girlfriend," I said. " Now Mom, would you please leave?"

" Alright, alright. I'll be back in at lights out," she said. I nodded and listened as she left the room.

Mom always said we were childhood sweethearts, I disagree we were just best friends. Partners in crime. Even if there was that one kiss when we were ten... But now I was happy to see my friend again. And that's all that he was. My friend. No matter how blue his eyes were or how nice his hair looked or how I was possibly lying a bit when I said he was just a friend. But he was. Charlie was my friend and that was all.


End file.
